


The Doctor, the Detective, and the Ripper

by LilyBalfast



Series: The Receding Storm [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 15:05:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15997739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyBalfast/pseuds/LilyBalfast
Summary: The Doctor (a future regeneration) travels into a parallel world in order to recruit Sherlock Holmes for an important mission, but Sherlock refuses to join unless the Doctor proves that he's a time traveller by letting Sherlock solve one of the biggest cases in the history of Great Britain: Jack the Ripper.





	1. Prologue: The Mystery of the Blue Box

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, time to start my second work on this site. This team up plot is something I've tried to write for ages now, but I never really got to it, but recently the idea of Jack the Ripper popped into my mind and suddenly the inspiration and motivation for this particular story came rushing back. Also, the mission mentioned in the description and surely in some of the future chapters is going to be a sort of sequel to this story, so you won't see it in any of these chapters, all you'll get from this is some hints to the mission and a Doctor Who/Sherlock/Jack the Ripper story. Another thing, the mission sequel won't come immediately after this story. Before that, I have some other short requitment stories planned along with some DW stories leading up to the recruitment, so the actual mission story is probably going to be pretty far off, but hey, it will happen.

John barely even had to glance at the wall when he entered their small flat in 221B to know what Sherlock was staring at, the puzzle he was trying to solve. All he needed to see was the detective standing in his typical thinking-pose, chin leaned to the tip of his fingers, his body still as a statue, and his face caught in a frozen moment of intense thought. Upon the wall hung countless of photos, drawings, diary entries, newspaper clippings, printed screenshots from websites and blogs, and whatever else related to this new obsession. John thought his friend''s new case ridiculous, of course, it was all just an urban myth thought up by some Internet weirdo, probably another one of those 'scary spaghetti' stories or whatever they were called. But to Sherlock, it was perfectly real, and that's why his entire favourite shooting wall was completely covered with all of these clues, every single one leading back to the same object: an old, blue police box.

The first time John had asked about it, Sherlock had explained that back in the 50s, these blue, wooden boxes had been placed around street corners all over Britain. If a citizen witnessed a crime, they could pull the small hatch and phone the police, and if the police caught a criminal but had no way of quickly getting them to the nearest station, they could lock the person inside the box until transport arrived. And ever since Sherlock had found these silly little stories floating around the Internet almost three months ago, he'd been completely obsessed with figuring out how this box could appear all throughout history, dating as far back as the stone age. All over their wall, where actual clues for real cases were usually put up, there now hung pictures and drawings and mentions of this police box, collected all throughout history, and all obviously fake if you asked John.

"Are you _still_ trying to solve this silly box mystery? You do know it's just-"

"No," he interrupted with the tone of a man who had had this discussion dozens of times, "No, it is not just another Internet rumour, John. If it was, I would be able to find its source. And these pictures, these drawings, I've triple checked them. They're not fakes, they're perfectly real, and most of them are very old."

"What do you mean, 'most of them'? If you're looking at a box that appears throughout history, shouldn't all of them be old?"

"No, John..." he mumbled disappointedly with an added little sigh for effect, "Some are new pictures of old things, like the cave drawings. Others are pictures or blog entries of the box appearing in our generation.  _'All of history_ ' doesn't just mean the past, it means the present and the future. And believe me, it  _will_ keep appearing in the future. Sadly I can only see the past and present, though, so that's what I'll have to stick with."

"But you can't  _really_ believe that some old box from the 50s can be in all of these places before it even existed? Or after it'd been decommissioned?"

"Actually, the one I'm after is most likely from the early 60s..." he mumbled, deep in thought again, and now barely listening to his friend.

John was just about to continue the argument when a loud, horrid noise interrupted his thoughts, but Sherlock was too deep into his own thoughts to pay it any mind. The noise was almost as if someone was playing an instrument in a way it was never meant to be played. John crossed the small distance between the door to the stairs and the window facing the street to find out what was making all of the noise, but just as he got to the window, the noise stopped. He pulled the curtains apart anyway, and what he saw made him pause in shock for a solid minute.

"Sherlock..." he said, still stunned by what he was looking at, "About that box..."

"John, for god's sake, can you give it a rest already? I don't care what you think of the police box, all that matters to me in this matter is that I know it exists, and all I  _want_ to do in this matter is to figure out  _how_ it exists, so can you  _please_ be quiet and let me think."

"But Sherlock-"

" **JOHN, FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE, COLD YOU JUST LISTEN TO ME AND SHUT - UP!!!"**

**"YOUR PRECIOUS BOX IS STANDING ACROSS THE STREET AT THIS VERY MOMENT, YOU STUBBORN PIECE OF-"**

Before he could finish that thought though, Sherlock had practically flown across the room, grabbed his coat, and sprinted down the stairs, with an incredibly frustrated John following soon after.

As Sherlock threw the front do open with a loud bang, his face lit up in an exctatic smile for the briefest of moments in satisfaction of finally seeing the mysterious box he'd been chasing with his own eyes. He was so caught up in the moment that he almost didn't notice the man leaning against the box with a smug grin upon his lips, locking eyes with the detective as Sherlock studied everything he could see about the man.

"Hello, Mr Holmes. I heard you've been looking for my box." said the man with the tone of someone who thought them self incredibly impressive, "I'm the Doctor."

Sherlock looked into the man's eyes again with a confident smirk once he'd made his deductions after studying him, and John joined his side at that very moment, looking confused as always.

"What do you mean 'the Doctor'?" John asked, and the strange man's smile grew even wider in anticipation for the next question, "Doctor who?"


	2. Bigger On the Inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The detective is tested, the companion is shocked, and the Doctor shows off.

"Doctor who?" John asked, because someone couldn't just be called 'the Doctor', unless it was some sort of codename. The man didn't answer at first, he just closed his eyes for a moment and smiled at the satisfaction of hearing his second favourite phrase that arose with new people meeting him. Once he opened them again, he looked at the blogger for a moment before switching over to the detective.

"Well?" asked the Doctor, "I assume you've already made your deductions, Mr Holmes, so answer your partner's question. Who am I?" he said, some emphasis on the word partner, challenging the man in front of him. The two men smirked at each other, one because he was about to be, according to him, impressive, and the other because he had just been, according to him, impressive.

"Oh, we're not together, I'm not-"

"I'd say you're a time travellet from another planet who's come here to recruit me for some sort of mission," Sherlock said confidently, interrupting his friend's objections of sexuality, and the Doctor only nodded slowly as he spoke.

"Sherlock, you can't possibly be ser-"

"That's all fine and dandy," the Doctor interrupted, "but as they say, the destination is only half the fun. The tell me the journey, how you came to these conclusions."

"You dress like what you seem to think a normal human would, your posture looks like you're pretending to be calm and comfortable beside your box, but your fidgeting hands and the constant light tapping of your right foot suggests you can't wait until this conversation is over so that you can get back into your  _time machine_ and keep running away, with or without me, from all the horrors of your past."

"Sherlock-"

"Quiet, John. Your clothes appear to be vintage at first glance, to the untrained eye your jacket appears to be styled after one found in the mid 1800s, and your trousers styled like ones from early 1900s, but if you actually stop and look for a moment at the way they're sewn, threaded, and woven, at the quality of the fabric, and the tiny imperfections that suggests they were made individually by expert human hands instead of mass produced in a sweat shop. So thereby, your clothes aren't made to look old, they  _are_ old. They are made in the time periods I mentioned, so they should look worn and ancient, but they look brand new, meaning you got them fresh off the tailors a hundred or so years ago. Looking at the colours you chose, navy blue jacket with black pants, and a black tie? I'd say you're dressing as if you want to blend in as a happy-go-lucky human, while also being ready to attend a funeral at any time you can. You want to dress like common folk, but then you dress like a millionaire. This seems to be a trend for you, if my theory is correct, but your attempts to dress for the occasion doesn't always end well."

"No? What makes you say that?"

"Oh, I haven't just been researching the box, Doctor, but also the man who seems to follow in its wake. There have been some sightings of you over the decades, and I've got to say, rainbow coat with a matching umbrella?  _Really_?"

"Alright," said the man, choosing to ignore the remark about his fashion sense of the mid 80s, "what makes you so certain an ordinary police box from the 50s is a time machine?"

Sherlock smiled even wider now, the man confirming both his theory of him being an alien and of him wearing different faces. He just  _loved_ being right.

"Oh, that one's easy. And don't try to trick me, Doctor, it won't work. It's a police box from the early 60s, not 50s."

"And how are you going to prove that, Mr Holmes?"

"As I said, easy. Everyone on the various forums claimed that it was impossible to determine where the box originally came to be seen in our history based on the most prominent theory of time travel. To the untrained eye, even the earliest ever dated appearance of your box could have happened at any point during your personal time line. I, however, have  _very_ trained eyes, Doctor. It was incredibly simple to separate the times you landed in your past and the times you landed in the year parallel to your present."

"You don't say. People have tried to figure this out for centuries now, thinking if they can find the first appearance of me on Earth, they can kill me before I turned into the man I am today. How did  _you_ figure out what countless of other people have failed to do?"

"Because, Doctor, I am not people. You see, when you landed the box in your past, it wasn't discovered and reported on until after you landed once more in your present. But when you landed in your present, it was seen, documented, and reported upon within a day or two of your landing. With that in mind, it was child's play to date back the earliest recorded sighting of your box, late November, 1963. A police officer first reported a misplaced police box inside of a scrap yard, and then a few days later he reported that same box missing, possibly confused over who would steal an entire wooden box the size of a phone booth."

The Doctor only looked at Sherlock for a while with a satisfied smile on his lips before speaking, "So if this really is my time machine, why on Earth would I have it built like a police box? Made out of wood? Wood is pretty fragile, you know."

"I'm guessing it's a disguise. It isn't a hard guess to make, considering the first appearance in '63, so I'm assuming it's meant to disguise itself as whatever suits the time period and the general area of where it lands? I'm also guessing that something broke back then, that the disguise got stuck as a police box. Am I correct, Doctor?"

"Quite so," he answered, watching the detective smirk at his only long shot being correct, "Lastly, 'running from the horrors of my past', what gave you that idea?"

"You smile too much, your voice sounds too cheerful, and your eyes seem to hide sorrow, pain, and heartbreak. If you ever want to call someone's bluff, look into their eyes. But all of this might just point to general depression, see what tells me it's your past you're fleeing from and not just your feelings overall? Because of your time machine."

"What about it?"

"It's still a police box. I'm asuming that a time machine is not an easy thing to fly, nor to maintain, but judging by your recurring appearances throughout our history, you've been doing a pretty good job of keeping it going, meaning you know how it works, inside and out. So theoretically you should be able to easily fix whatever function or program or circuit that causes the disguise, but you haven't. That points to sentiment, it means you want to remember where you begun, but you don't want to face it. You keep the broken disguise to remind you of your past, but you barely look at it if you can help it because you don't always want to remember."

The Doctor stared at the man in front of him, then at his partner who seemed to be too stunned to speak, and then started laughing, followed by applauding.

"Very good! Very good indeed! You are even better than I expected, Mr Holmes. So what do you think? You've always figured out that I need you for a mission, so will you come with me? There are even more surprises to come, just beyond these doors."

"No."

"I'm sorry, what? No?"

"Not yet, at least. Before I accept or decline, I want to hear what this mission is about. Don't think you can lure me away with the sole promise of time travel, I want to know what I'm getting into."

The Doctor only had to consider for less than a second before agreeing, adamant on getting this man on his side, and son the three of them were back in the small flat, Sherlock and John sitting in their respective armchairs, and the Doctor on the wooden chair reserved for clients.

"So," Sherlock started, sipping at a cup of tea, "you're an alien. Tel me about your race."

"I'm sorry, I thought you wanted to know about the mission?"

"Well, yes, but first I want to know you. I will not follow someone I barely know anything about."

"Barely anything?!" John exclaimed, finally breaking out of his silence, "You just listed off his entire life story!"

"Hardly, John. As I mentioned, he's an alien, so I imagine Earth isn't the only place he's visited with his time machine. And imagining the countless of destinations he'd be able to go to in the vastness of space and within all of time, especially compared to how many times he's visited Earth, he must have travelled for hundreds of years, maybe even thousands, and look at his face. He doesn't look older than 30-35. If what I said was his entire life story, he must have lived an incredibly boring life. Now go on, Doctor, before my friend here interrupts you again, tel me about your people."

"They're called the Time Lords," he said, sipping at his own tea, "and as you can imagine they make sure that every time line is at its supposed to be."

"And do all of them possess a time machine like yours?"

"Well, no. Only a select few are chosen to go through the training required to pilot a TARDIS under the command of the council."

"TARDIS?" asked John curiously.

"That's what we call our time machines, 'Time and Relative Dimensions In Space'. It's meant to be piloted by six people, but as I stole mine, I have to pilot her on my own."

"You're saying that six people are supposed to fit inside of that box?" John asked, and Sherlock sighed beside him.

"Didn't you listen, John? He said time and  _relative dimensions_ in space."

"I don't understand."

"You'll see soon enough," the Doctor said with a little wink.

"Why did you steal it?" the detective asked, not judgemental,  more like curious than anything else.

"Oh. I wanted to see the stars. Every single one of them," he said quietly, a nostalgic smile spreading on his lips. The first genuine smile Sherlock had seen so far.

"You wanted to see the stars. Then what kept bringing you back to Earth? Sentiment?"

"Well,  yes. Original it was the sentiment of my granddaughter, Susan. But then I to started taking a liking to this planet, and I started bringing people with me to see the stars, and the more stars I visited, the more people need saving. The more people I saved, the more enemies I made. Eventually the enemies figured out that I was fond of this planet, so they started attacking it, and I kept coming back to protect it, time and time again."

"I'm pretty sure I would remember aliens attacking Earth, Doctor," Sherlock said, sounding s epically for the first time during their conversation. 

"Yes, well... that's the thing. You said I wasn't of this planet, but it's a bit worse than that I'm afraid. I'm not actually from this universe, I'm from one parallel to yours. I had to rip a hole in the barrier between universes,  fly through the void between worlds fast enough as to not get lost forever, and aim for a world where you existed in a modern enough time period that your intellect mixed with modern sciences would make for the greatest detective known to mankind, able to solve nearly every single case thrown at him. And considering how quickly you figured out who I am and what I do, I'd say you're the man I was looking for."

"But wait, if you're not from this world, then how come there's so many sightings of your tardis throughout our history?"

"Oh, that. As I said, I had to rip a hole in my universe to get to yours, and I'm afraid that hole didn't close as soon as I hoped. Before I managed to close it myself, some of my world's history bled through into yours. As it seems, the only core difference between our time lines are the existence of you and I, which is why my TARDIS is the only thing you've picked up on."

"So in short, you travel your universe, save people from imminent danger, fight evil aliens, protect time, and then go back to Earth for tea and some good company?"

 "Yeah, that pretty much sums me up."

"And the only reason you came here was to recruit me. Well then, tell me about this mission of yours."

"I have all the information you need in my TARDIS, if you wouldn't mind having the conversation in there. What do you say, Mr Holmes, are you finally ready to see my time machine?"

Sherlock smiled at the man and stood up, gesturing for him to lead the way. The Doctor lead them down the stairs, across the street, and up to the blue box. He resisted the urge to open it by snapping his fingers, feeling he'd shown off enough for one day, and grabbed the small key from his inner pocket. The key slid into the keyhole, and the door opened with an audible creak. The three of them walked inside, the Doctor and Sherlock in silence, and John with a loud gasp.

"Oh my god, Sherlock! It's bigger on the inside! I can't believe it!"

"I know, John. As I said, you didn't listen. Time and relative dimensions in space, he said. Relative dimensions clearly meant that the outer dimensions of his time machine were different from the inner ones, and as he mentioned it requires six pilots, meaning the inside has to accommodate for both some sort of console to control the time machine with, living quarters, and whichever kind of rooms each individual crewmember would require. In short, it was obviously going to be 'bigger on the inside'."

"Wow, you really do suck the fun out of everything, don't you? You just ruined my number one favourite phrase that comes with new people. Thank you so much, Mr Holmes," the Doctor said bitterly, pulling up the information he needed to show them on the scanner.

"Oh, you're very welcome, Doctor," he retorted with a teasing smile, "and please, call me Sherlock."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we are, chapter one. Chapter two will be about the mission, Sherlocks request, and seeing victorian London, so there's that to look forwards to!


End file.
